


Remember, Remember

by MovesLikeBucky



Series: Ineffable Outliers Weekly Prompts [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Light Angst, M/M, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-23 22:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21327697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/pseuds/MovesLikeBucky
Summary: Aziraphale could hear chanting out in the streets, the old ditties mixed with the new ones.  He always preferred the old ones.  Time marching on and all that, but still.  He was glad some were actually out celebrating.  It was hard times right now, during this war.  Never let it be said you could keep a good Brit down, he supposed.  Though he wished it would all end soon.  Was starting to feel like the End Times in London these days.It had felt that way for a while for Aziraphale.  For seventy-eight years now in fact.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Outliers Weekly Prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483709
Comments: 23
Kudos: 81





	Remember, Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Back again with another prompt fill for the Ineffable Outliers Discord!
> 
> Prompt this week is: It's Bonfire Night/Firework Night in the UK. What does the Gomens crew get up to?
> 
> Apologies if I have any details wrong because I'm a silly American who has never celebrated Bonfire Night xD

** _November 5, 1940 – In a bookshop in Soho, an angel reminisces._ **

_Don’t you Remember,_  
_ The Fifth of November,_  
_ ‘Twas Gunpowder Treason Day,_  
_ I let off my gun,_  
_ And made’em all run._  
_ And Stole all their Bonfire away!_

Aziraphale could hear chanting out in the streets, the old ditties mixed with the newer ones. He always preferred the old ones. Time marching on and all that, but still. He was glad some were actually out celebrating. It was hard times right now, during this war. Never let it be said you could keep a good Brit down, he supposed. Though he wished it would all end soon. Was starting to feel like the End Times in London these days.

It had felt that way for a while for Aziraphale. For seventy-eight years now in fact.

Seventy-eight years, six hours, and forty-three minutes if he wanted to be exact.

Aziraphale remembered Guy Fawkes, of course. Not that he remembered _much_ about the man per se, but he did remember him. Hard to forget someone who nearly blows up the king.

He did enjoy the bonfires though. The revelry and celebration that came with them even in the early days felt a lot like victory. It was one of the things he secretly looked forward to every year, deep down inside where he’d never let anyone know. As time went on, he’d sit in his bookshop, pretending not to notice the commotion outside, but loving the happiness coming from the people all the same. 

After all, it wasn’t a sin to cut loose once in a while.

Years passed and then the fireworks came; he hadn’t been a fan of those at first. Too loud, too scary. But he’d learned to appreciate them over the years. The beautiful colors that humans could coax out of a few chemicals, painting the sky in dazzling stars.

He’d convinced Crowley to come see with him once, knowing the demon’s love for human ingenuity. For some reason they had just made Crowley sad and he’d slept for three weeks1.

Aziraphale didn’t invite Crowley to Bonfire Night after that, and he didn’t ask why it upset him. The angel liked to think he had more tact than that. No, if the fireworks bothered Crowley, he’d leave it be.

But that was then, and this is now. He settled in with his glass of wine (which would conveniently become a lovely single malt as the evening went on) to remember.

Remember, as he did every year, not the fifth of November 1605, but the fifth of November 1862. 

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and twelve minutes since his world had been turned upside down.

He set aside this time, every year, to remember and to hope.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and fifteen minutes since he’d seen or heard from Crowley.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and sixteen minutes since he’d spat out the word “fraternizing” at his best friend like he couldn’t care less.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and seventeen minutes since he’d been asked to do the one thing he couldn’t do.

_I’m not giving you a suicide pill, Crowley._

Aziraphale’s entire world had come crashing down around him with two words. Two words, nine letters, one small piece of parchment.

The means to an end. ‘Insurance’, Crowley had said.

Aziraphale pondered as he always did what Crowley meant by that. He came to the same conclusion he always did; if Hell ever turned on Crowley, he wanted an easy way out.

Selfish as he was, Aziraphale couldn’t give him that. Feelings and emotions that he’d been fighting tooth and nail since the Garden. Since Mesopotamia. Since Golgotha and Rome and the Globe and everywhere in between clawed their way out to the surface that day, wrenching him open and bleeding there in the middle of St. James for everyone to see.

A world without Crowley was not one that Aziraphale wanted to live in, and so the angel had panicked. Had fallen back on their old habits. His old song and dance of what if (_what if the Arrangement is discovered, what if my side finds out, what if your side finds out_), the same old pushback he always gave.

He hadn’t wanted to push Crowley away. He’d wanted to pull him closer, beg him to stay. Aziraphale would’ve fought all the hordes of Hell just to keep Crowley safe; he _had_ been a soldier once, flaming sword notwithstanding.

But he’d been weak, he’d stormed off. Left Crowley standing there on his own, the last image of the demon, scowling and hurt, burned into his mind with startling clarity even now, after all these years.

After seventy-eight years, seven hours, and thirty-four minutes.

The Bonfire festivities that night had gone by and he hadn’t even bothered to look out his shop window. Too upset with himself, too upset with Crowley.

The thought of Crowley leaving him here alone was…well…excruciating.

He’d slammed the door of his bookshop, not even bothering to reopen that day. He’d screamed and he’d cried, and he’d even prayed a couple of times.

But now that the flood had bubbled over, there was no putting it back.

Aziraphale was an angel, and he was in love with a demon. A realization that had no place to exist and also no place to go. Even if Crowley were still around, what could they do?

_My side doesn’t send rude notes_, Crowley had told him once in a cell in the middle of revolutionary France.

What would either side do to them if Aziraphale had acted on it? What would either side do if Crowley felt the same?

Of course he didn’t, there wasn’t a possibility of it. Demons can’t feel love, everyone in Heaven knows that. Just like they know demons are inherently evil at all times, that demons don’t care about kids or carpenters from Galilee or floundering Shakespearian productions or stuffy angels who get themselves locked up for being peckish.

Seventy-eight years, eight hours, and six minutes and his wine had indeed changed into a single-malt scotch.

Thoughts like these didn’t do for sobriety.

Aziraphale was in love with a demon, and that demon was not currently speaking to him.

He spared a glance out the window at the drunken revelers. Not a good night for that, not since the bombs started dropping. Technically Bonfire Night had been suspended by parliament due to the war, but this was Soho and Soho was always a party.

Aziraphale finished off his scotch and sent a quick blessing out to the revelers. They’d all make it home in one piece before any bombs fell tonight.

As for the ever-shattering broken pieces of himself, he’d have to pick them up himself.

He had a meeting tomorrow, with British intelligence. Apparently, they had need of a bookseller for something very important.

\---

** _January, 1941 – In the rubble of a church in London, an angel feels relieved._ **

_He came back, to save me_.

Seventy-eight years and he came back.

Swooped in at the last minute, every bit the dashing hero. Well, save for the hopping, but that’s to be expected.

Seventy-eight years and he was back, they were still friends. He still _meant_ something to Crowley, though what that was he couldn’t say. 

A new name, a new plan, and one bomb later, Aziraphale felt his life falling back into place.

A warmth, radiating from where his heart would be if he were he human, spreading throughout him. Filling him with waves of love; waves of relief. 

Aziraphale watches as Crowley cleans the dirt off his sunglasses; he’s overwhelmed with affection for the demon. Seventy-eight years had done nothing to wall off the broken dam of feelings released back in 1862.

The silence is palpable, something hanging in the air that needs to be said but cannot possibly be said.

“That was very kind of you,” the angel says, trying to find something to fill this silence.

“Shut up,” Crowley retorts, but there isn’t any bite to it. If Aziraphale weren’t mistaken, he could’ve sworn he heard some fondness in there.

“Well, it was,” Aziraphale says trying to tread lightly, “No paperwork for a start…”

The angel isn’t sure what to say. There’s too much _to_ say. How do you sum of seventy-eight years of missing someone, of worrying about someone, of loving someone from a distance? How do you even begin to?

No one ever wrote prophecies about something like this. Wait a minute…

“The books! I forgot all the books,” the angel starts to fret as he is wont to do, barely registering Crowley walking past him, “They’ll all be blown to…”

He stops when he hears a crunching sound, like brittle bones cracking. He turns and sees Crowley, holding out a leather satchel. The same leather satchel that Mr. Harmony had sequestered Aziraphale’s precious books into.

Aziraphale reaches out for the bag, and their hands brush.

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” Crowley says from behind those dark glasses and oh what Aziraphale wouldn’t give to be able to see the demon’s eyes right now. To read into all of this, to see if that fondness in Crowley’s voice reaches all the way to them. 

“Lift home?” Crowley asks as he turns and walks away. His voice is soft, possibly even tender. Aziraphale can’t move, he’s too stunned.

There’s no reason for Crowley to save his books. There’s no benefit in it for him. Nothing except Aziraphale’s happiness; how could he have missed it?

Flashes of love; plain as day.

Flashes of love, painting beautiful colors. Copper and charcoal; potassium and barium. Strontium, lithium and all of the rest.

No, fireworks are nothing compared to the colors he can see now. The only thing that had ever compared to these colors were the stars, as seen up close in the early days of heaven.

“You coming, angel?”

“Yes, of course, sorry lost in thought,” Aziraphale stammers as he rushes to catch up with Crowley.

He’s back, he doesn’t seem to be angry with him, and for the first time in a very long time, Aziraphale lets himself feel hope.

\---

1 – It would be a few centuries before Crowley would tell Aziraphale about his time before the fall; painting the skies with stars and planets and nebula. He hadn’t seen them up close in so long, and the fireworks only reminded him of what he’d lost all those millennia ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr under [MovesLikeBucky](https://moveslikebucky.tumblr.com)! Come and scream with me because I haven't stopped screaming since May 31st.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Remember, Remember [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23504734) by [ahundredindecisions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahundredindecisions/pseuds/ahundredindecisions)


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